


To Be Brothers

by Fireflys



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Humor, Multi, Original Character(s), Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26578915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fireflys/pseuds/Fireflys
Summary: "Do you guys remember when we went on this whole wild goose chase to collect the Oozesquitoes to save New York from being Mutant Central?”, Donnie asks. “How could we ever forget, dude?”, answers Mikey. “Well I found one the other day. Apparently we didn't get them all last time. So I caught it and-” “BY yourself?!”, Leo exclaims, “Man, I wish I had seen that one:”“Fuck you Leo. Anyway, We can become humans!", Donnie says, jazz hands and all.”Wait, I thought we agreed we were good the way we were.” No jazz hands then. So Donnie disappears into the Lab again. To further study the mutagen.For a hypothetical use of course. Nothing elseHe would never.
Relationships: Casey Jones/Leonardo (TMNT), Mona Lisa/Raphael (TMNT)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> I watched the movie. I got inspired. This happened. Now I have no social life anymore.
> 
> This is my first fanfiction. Please, please, please give me feedback. I have no beta and I have taught myself the english language through Netflix, Fanfiction and determination.  
> Grammar and spelling critique is like so welcome, you have no idea. 
> 
> Also please tell me if I should continue (Ideas are also welcome,however I do have the metaplot down) and if you liked this small introduction I made.

Donatello:

“Do you guys remember when we went on this whole wild goose chase to collect the Oozesquitoes to save New York from being Mutant Central?”, Donnie asks.

“How could we ever forget, dude?”, answers Mikey.

“Well I found one the other day. Apparently we didn't get them all last time. So I caught it and-

“BY yourself?!”, Leo exclaims, “Man, I wish I had seen that one:”

“Fuck you Leo. Anyway, I analyzed the mutagen in the mosquito and what it normally does, is grant the human an anthropomorphic form of the last animal they have been in contact with. But it was different for us, even though it was the same Ooze. We were granted an anthropomorphic body and human-like intelligence. Even though that was only possible because our DNA was spliced with Dad's and the distribution of that, if I may be frank, seems to be unfairly unproportional.”

“Get to the point, Donnie”, Raph says.

“Yes, as I was saying, depending on the form of the host, the function of the mutagen changes. So I thought: What would happen if we used it again, a second time? Would we mutate even further into humans or something else entirely? And with a bit of genetic engineering I was able to make a mutagen that can be activated in the body like a muscle that can be upheld or retracted by will.”

Mickey moves from his seat on Donnie's Lab-chair.“Say whaaaaaat”

“Right, I was as amazed as you were.”

“I don't think Mikey got what you just said” Leo interrupts. 

Seriously?

Raph chooses to interrupt their exchange by exclaiming:“I didn't understand a fucking word either”

”We can become humans!”, Donnie repeats, jazz hands and all.

”Wait, I thought we agreed we were good the way we were.”

No jazz hands then. ”Oh, come on Leo. As a scientist I cannot just stop my research and frankly, I don't want to. If we were humans,we could finally be normal teenagers. We could go to school, dude.”

”I can't believe that's the first thing you would do as a human, brah. I would go for pizza first”, Raph cuts in, followed by Mikey's:”OH MY GOD, YES. Can we, please?”

”Leo, you know how bad Mikey wants to go to skating competitions”, Donnie tries to argue,” and he would like get an instant art scholarship-”

”Fuck school, I could be a pro wrestler”,Raph cuts him off again.

”Or that. The point is, it could change our lives. We could stop hiding who we are.”

”By changing ourselves completely. I can't believe you would even suggest that”, Leo retaliates and Ok, fine, that is actually a pretty good point.

”We stay the same on the inside, we will just look like humans on the outside.”

”Well, I think we shouldn't do it!”, Leo exclaims.

“Should, too. It's important for all of us. You are just stubborn, Leo!”, Raph shoots back then, angered at his brother's resistance.

“Should not. You just want to act up for the sake of arguing!”

“I do not, you jerk.”

“Yes you do.”

“Do not.”

“Do!”

“Do not! You are just jealous nobody ever listens to your ideas!”, Raph screams.

Leo's mouth clicks shut so quickly, the resounding sound fills the silence that had befallen the lab. His retort must have died on his tongue. Raph's eyes widen as he realizes the implication of his accusation and reaches out with his hands towards his brother.

Leo flinches back, surprising not only his brothers but himself by the action and immediately looks at Raph in regret. Their tallest looks..hurt. 

Leo only manages to mutter out a barely audible “M'sorry” before he turns his back to them and...

...stormes out of the lab.

Donnie sighs and tries to call after him.

He didn't get an answer. Maybe he had not heard him.

Very. 

Unprobable.

“What?”, Raph calls out petulantly at the looks sent to him by both Donnie and Mikey.

Donnie then sighs again and tries to understand the unreadable look on Raph's face, whose expressions Donnie could usually gauge so easily. “Leader's orders”, he says finally, “Sorry man”.

He ignores Raph clenching his teeth at the word leader and turnes back to his research, that appeared useless to him now. He also ignores the hurt in their former leader's eyes. 

Better pick your battles.

Mikey leaves the room uncharacteristically quietly while Raph's voice can be heard long after he exits. That and various noises that sound dangerously close to their training room being demolished.

The next day is a disaster. Donnie has serious regrets about ever bringing the topic up. Leo and Raph are silently sending glares at each other all throughout breakfast and Mickey is moping.

During training they hit each other more than the training dummies, by actual accident. Well, Raph was probably aiming for Leo but the others are stumbling around so much it is a miracle, none of them ended up with a broken bone.

The day after is worse.

Master Splinter puts them all on house arrest. Well deserved house arrest.

So Donnie disappears into the Lab again. To further study the mutagen.

For a hypothetical use of course.

He would never.

The mutagen actually has a much more complex structure on further inspection, Donnie notices. This Draxum dude must have worked on that for ages. The composition and dose is perfectly calculated, and the actual mutation works almost instantly. 

Now he understands why the dude was so mad about them exploding their lab. He'd be furious, too.

If he properly engineered it, he could probably make it semi permanent and if he added something like an activator and a catalyst that can be controlled by the host, they would not have to take a new dose each time they wanted to change, but be able to transform at will. He would need a certain trigger for the actual implementation, but then it wouldn't even be exhausting to stay in human form! They would not have to worry about detection or random detransforming either, since he could compose the mutation and de-mutation to lie dormant if not called for.

The next day, Donnie requests another meeting in the lab. He is ready for take two, three hours of sleep be dammed.


	2. A New Beginning

Donatelllo

“Ok guys, I know we had this conversation yesterday and it was decided to not use the mutagen. So I stayed up all night, working on it and I really think you should hear me out, without storming out of the room dramatically at first chance. I am looking at you Leo”, Donnie announces and that could have been phrased better by the evil stink eyes Leo is shooting at him.

Surprisingly enough, Leo lets out a loud breath and the tension in his body seemed to lessen.”Fine. You already know what I think about it, but I am willing to hear you out, if it makes you happy.”

“And I am so thankful for that. You have no idea.”

“Not like I had a choice with all of you ganging up on me”

“Well, no, but-”

“And Raph beating me up with the blunt end of his Sai”, Leo adds.

“That was totally accidental”, said Brother defends while crossing his arms,”But, I'm glad it worked.”

“So we can become humans now?”, Mikey questions.

“Technically not. We just mutate closer to the human body. We might still retain some of our mutant abilities, but we will look like humans, probably. AND before anyone else starts complaining, we could turn back. At will. Any time we want. So we could still be crime-fighting ninja turtles.” After his explanation, Donnie looks for the reactions of his brothers.

Mikey seems super excited and Raph a little speechless, if he was being honest.

Leo looks...defeated? And lost. Something so unlike Leo it throws Donnie off for a moment before he realizes, their leader is actually thinking this over. Weighting the arguments over in his head and for a moment he can see all the doubts Leo is having, all the worries and the ways this could go wrong and hurt them. Then he schools his expression back into determined and announces: “ I cannot believe I am suggesting this, but whatever being human- if only at times- entails, this will affect all of us. It's your call. We'll do whatever you guys say.”

Speechless, Donnie turns to his Brother's mirroring his own expression. He had not expected Leo to cave so fast. Raph's words must have really hit deep, for proud Leo to seek his brother's guidance so easily.

“Well I did not think this would go as smoothly as it just did, but I vote yes.”

“Me, too”, Mikey pipes up and shortly after Raph's 'Fine' follows. He is scowling and Donnie knows that their discussion isn't over. Knows that him and Leo would have that argument again and again. Knows that Leo tries but most of the time fails, and honestly, what did Master Splinter think? That they would just work out their whole team dynamics anew with Raph's temper and Leo's big head and succeed? Maybe in a better world.

But that isn't important right now. This was a chance for them and Master Splinter would...

“What is Dad gonna say to this?”, Donnie thinks aloud and, “Oh my god what are we gonna tell him? Should we even tell him?”

“Your Sensei does not want you to go to the surface”, a new voice answers from the doorway, “But as your father I will have to learn to let you go. Now I have to go back to my TV before the commercial ends. Break a leg!” The old man turns and disappears as fast as he came.

No backing out now.

“So that means we can do it?”, Mikey says.

Raph grunts in agreement and holds his hand out for the one of the vials Donnie created. Mikey follows his movements, as does Leo surprisingly.

Donnie chooses not to remind Mikey of his fear of needles. The moment seems too serious, too fragile to interrupt, so he hastily distributes them and adds: “Right. Just uncap the needle, hold it to your skin, wherever really, but I recommend triceps or thigh, more muscles, faster distribution throughout the body. The first change might be a bit painful, but that should recede soon enough.  
If you're ready just press the button on the top.”

Mikey looks like he does not know where to put the vial, but, again, chooses to stay silent and follows Leo's movements as he sets the needle on his arm.

Raph does, too. “Ready?”, he says and looks at them for confirmation.

Leo echoes his words first.

Then, reluctantly, Mikey.

“On three”, Donnie states and sets the needle on his thigh.

“Just for the record. I reserve the rights to tell ya'll I was right when this inevitably blows up in our faces”, Leo grumbles and Donnie decides to start counting before anyone realizes that he had no chance to test the new mutagen on anyone.

“One”

The air seems to thicken.

“Two”

The room goes silent as its occupants hold their breaths.

“Three”

Four pops sound through Donnie's lab as the needle sinks into their skin. He is afraid one of them might faint from holding their breath so long. And then...

“Okay I'm not feeling any different”, Mikey announces,”Am I supposed to feel any different?”

“Well it is supposed to act very-”, he does not get to finish his sentence as Donnie feels his three fingers split into five like a bone popping back in place. He watches, fascinated as his toes doe the same, followed by his vertebrae straightening and he shortly marvels at the added height and the loss of familiar weight on his back where his shell once was, when he is distracted by a growing pressure, his skull reforming until the headache disappears as suddenly as it came, leaving him slightly nauseated and disoriented. Eventually he watches his plastron disappear to reveal pale skin that spreads like ink flowing around his body from his torso to his arms and legs and finally to his fingers.

Donnie takes a moment to gaze at his decidedly human hands in amazement, before looking up and finds three human boys standing around him in a circle. His mutagen had actually worked! Not that it could have gone wrong...in any way.

“Duuuude”, Mikey exclaims, “I have like ten more fingers! And Leo looks like Lou Jitsu! ”

“Well, we are his son's. Obviously, the human DNA of Lou Jitsu inside of us would also translate his ethnicity, but I am, too, shocked by the resemblance.”

“Who cares about the technicalities? Let's go eat some pizza. I feel awesome”, Raph shouts.

“You wanna go out looking like this”, Leo cuts in and points at himself. His blue belt is loosely hanging around his mid thigh and his mask had slipped to reveal bright blue eyes, his other hand is fisted around his black pants, that threatened to slip from his waist, “We are basically naked.”

“And we need a haircut, bro”, Mikey adds, gently running his fingers through his new hair, that reaches down to his clavicle. His gear had also slipped out of place. The most notable changes on him are an array of freckles on his nose, and piercing ice-blue eyes.

Reaching for a mirror quickly, Donnie notices that they all shared the same pale skin color and dark long hair, but kept their eye-color and size for the most part. Raph is still the tallest and bulkiest and Donnie himself is still as lean as before. Mikey is also still the smallest and now- even more obvious than before- their youngest. Leo looks every bit the seventeen old teenager he is and - to Donnie's great pleasure – seems every bit as shaken by the transformation, as the rest of his brothers.

“I'm gonna call April”, he decides. She would know what to do with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second chapter of my fanfiction. I hope you enjoy it!   
> I plan to update every Monday or so. Depending on the lenght of a chapter or a scene I want to finish, I might skip once or twice. But I will try!  
> Tips and comments are welcome as always :)


	3. Ride or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I actually wanted to post this monday, but I finished early so I thought what the hell?   
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy :)

Donatello:

One phone call later and a lot of scrambling for their clothes brings their friend with one giant backpack full of hair supplies.

Raph takes one of Donnie's old black shirts and promptly pulls it on, shrugging as it ripps a little at the same place his plastron had had a crack. He adds dark green jeans and white sneakers, also Donnie's. Donnie himself chooses to wear his beautiful, beautiful purple pullover that might be a little bit too big. Ok, it is way too big, but it is purple. He cannot resist. After a bit more digging he finds something like black leggings, probably April's, and pulls those on, too. Leo finds loose joggers in a light green, that surprisingly seem to fit, which Donnie is extremely jealous of. Their leader had taken probably the biggest t-shirt he owns out of his closet and pulls it on. 

It reaches down to his knees, so he tucks it into his pants.

It still looks hilarious.

They hear their friend exclaiming: ”Oh my gawd!”, as Mikey is pulling a pullover on that fits him perfectly in turtle form, but hangs low around his thighs now.

“I cannot believe, you magically transformed into humans and didn't tell me anything!”, April exclaims as she reaches their lair. 

“It was science, not magic, April”, Donnie counters.

“I gotta say though, ya'll look so different. I can barely recognize ya'll”, she admits, setting her backpack down on the ground with a metallic thud. 

What was in there? 

Leo shoots Raph a pointed look, but replies: “Yeah, well, we're still turtles inside and this stuff should be temporary, so we can turn back whenever.”

“That is so cool. Hey, who wants to go first? Ya'll needed a makeover, like yesterday.”, April barrels on.

“Wait, all of us? Listen, I'm not going back to bald. Nuh-uh. By the way, do you know what you could be cutting in my turtle form? I do not and I am not going to find out!”

“Awww, c'mon don't be baby, Leo”, April jokes as she distributes her various appliances to the – now human looking – turtles, “Welcome to my Happy Hair Saloon, guys!”

“Your what?”

“You heard me, Raph”, she answers as she leads their brother to one of Donnie's lab chairs, repurposed for her intended project, “Man you are still built like a tank, dude.”

April carefully cuts his hair into an undercut and styles the upper half into short spikes.

“Et voila big guy!”

“Sweet. Thanks April!”

“Now, who's next?”

If Donnie is being honest he would have never expected to ever visit a barber in his life. Maybe if a villain was running wild in one. But there he is, standing smack in the middle of their lair in the sewers, watching Leo try to resist getting his hair cut. It is adorable, really, with all the high pitched shrieking and colorful vocabulary thrown at his brothers for making fun of him. 

In the end, Leo gets to keep his long hair, but April puts it up in a bun with a hair stick which actually looks really good to his brother's surprises. Donnie chooses an undercut just like Raph, but keeps the rest of his hair long, so he can tie it into a ponytail. Mikey cuts all of his hair down to about four inches, so it falls in soft locks around his head and frames his face in a long fringe.

After, Mikey puts on a bright orange beanie, ruining his hairstyle completely and excitedly asks: “So, where to first?”

“Pizza!”, Raph answers enthusiastically and that is that.

They make their way trough the tunnels to go topside. Leo is skating a few feet ahead of the group, flipping the board with his feet and landing perfectly each time. Mikey is trying, bless his pure heart, but falling on his ass more often than he is standing on the board.

Curse Leo for adapting to his human extremities so quickly.

Meanwhile, Raph is filling April in on what she had missed and skipping over the last...argument, thank god for that. 

“So basically Donnie used his science magic, so we can be turtles and humans whenever.”Raph sums up.

“It was just science! Not magic, okay?!”

“Aw man, Donnie, c'mon. How can you still not believe in magic after all the shit that happened to us. I have a sword, that can open portals, dude”, Leo calls from the front. Mikey and Raph are nodding eagerly.

Seriously?

He chooses to stay silent in the idiocy of his brothers.

Leonardo:

Leo arrives topside and climbs out of the manhole first, priding himself on being able to move so steadily on his new limbs. Mikey's flailing is adorable. Raph, April and Donnie follow and the five make their way out of the alley and onto the surprisingly empty street.

One moment before leaving the small pathway Leo sees something rushing towards them out of the corner of his eyes. A vending machine flies along the boardwalk and the group would have been one giant disgusting pancake if they had moved two feet farther. 

“That's not normal”, Donnie remarks helpfully.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious. C'mon, let's see where it came from!”

Rounding the corner Leo notices several destroyed shop windows and buildings. He hears several people screaming but cannot track where they are running to. He crouches low and moves slowly behind a car for cover. His brothers and April follow. Leo glances from behind the car to the chaos on the street. Maybe the people are running away from the something throwing around objects so he looks in the other direction and...

He finds a giant rhinoceros running rampage on the street. What the hell? The thing is mutated, but doesn't seem to be in control. Maybe another animal?

A traffic light zooms past them, almost smashing their decidedly human bones. He is still looking after the streetlight when Raph screams: “Get down!” and they barely dodge the stop sign coming their way.

Hah, the are un'stop'able, thinks Leo as Raph says what he has been dreading would come out of his mouth:”We gotta help!”

“But we wanted to go for pizza”, Mikey whines.

Leo is too busy to react because he is staring at April who looks absolutely horrified. The joke he wanted to make dies on his tongue.

“Fight bad guys now, pizza later”, Raph orders and Leo could not agree more. 

This looks serious. They need their weapons.

Leo hears Donnie scold Mikey for thinking about pizza when some mutant is intent on destroying Brooklyn, as he runs back into the alley, scrambling for something useful. He finds two wooden sticks, a broken pipe and a tire iron. The pipe will have to do. He made a sword out of goddamn gardening tools. This should be enough to form a portal.

Raph is yelling at him from behind the car. “What are you doing? We don't have time for this, Leo!”

“Forgot something!”, he answers cheekily.

He hears his heart beating in his chest. 

“C'mon work! Please work!”

“Leo!”

“Just a second!”

“LEO!”

The portal opens and he sticks his arm into the gate, muttering 'please work' as he rummages around for their weapons. He fears that he opened it at the wrong place, but then feels the familiar handle of his katanas. He pulls them out of the portal along with his brother's gear, wearing a triumphant grin on his face.

“Hell yes, Leo saves the day yet again”, he announces proudly and distributes the Sais, Nunchucks and Donnie's Tech Staff 2.0.

“Nice”, Mikey cheers.

“We haven't saved anyone yet.”, Donnie interjects, “Whats the plan Raph?”

All the heads turn to their oldest and it hurts a little bit that nobody ever asks Leo that, but then again, Leo is awaiting his answer, too.

“I don't have a plan, Leader makes the plans”, Raph spits out guiltily.

Everyone turns expectantly towards Leo,who would like to take everything back he just thought right about now. Normally, he prides himself on being able to think up elaborate plans quickly, but his brain is completely empty, so he says the first thing that comes to his mind. 

“Attack him with everything we got?”

Then he thinks what would Raph do, because his brothers and April are looking at him in various states of confusion. So Leo calls out “Cowabunga” as loudly as possible and charges for the new, unknown mutant with his swords drawn.

Like an idiot.

His 'War Cry' has not been unnoticed, because as soon as he gets into the monsters range, it hurls a car at him that he barely dodges by throwing himself to the ground and trying to roll into a crouch. Keyword being try, because he stumbles and falls right in front of the rhino's massive feet. The figure blocks the sun, enveloping Leo in it's shadow. “Heyyy, you come here often?”, he nervously brings out and has a moment of regret and rue for his idiocy and missing motor skills as a human, before he is thrown into a brick wall.

Why did everything hurt so much more as a human? Leo really misses his shell right now and fights the urge to scream 'I told you so, being human sucks and we're all gonna die' as the gigantic mutant moves towards him, his steps making the ground shake.

But then his brothers follow his example and charge at the creature.

You know, like idiots.

Leo swallows down the sick feeling of satisfaction at seeing his brothers get thrown around just as easily and chokes out: ”OK, so we might need a better plan.” He ignores Donnie's “No shit” to help Mikey out of the pile of garbage that he was chucked into. He doesn't even feel the urge to make a pun about it.

Raph is wrestling with the Rhinoceros and Leo takes a second to marvel at the fact that his brother is still just as strong as before and hey, Leo didn't break all of his bones the way he should have, even though his ribs kind of hurt a lot. Still, Mikey and Donnie are just as unsure on their feet as Leo is, if not more and Raph cannot hold the monster for much longer. 

They have never encountered a mutant that has lost control so completely with no trace of recognition left in it's eyes. They need to put it down. But they need something big. Bigger than the beast itself, because even their mystic weapons aren't doing much damage at all. At this point, they are just running around like headless chickens. He needs...

Holy moly!

Leo's eyes find an upturned school bus on the far side of the road that probably crashed when the chaos began and seems to have been left empty. If he could just portal the bus onto him, then...

”April, with me! Guys, buy me some time!”, he calls over his shoulder and runs in the opposite direction of the monster, April hot on his heels. He wonders if he should have told his brothers about his plan so he follows with a “Trust me!” and hopes that it is enough for now. No time for long explanations.

“What are we doing, we can't leave them alone,” April argues.

“We aren't”, he tells her.

They're good fighters. They can handle themselves. 

Besides, they have Raph.

So he opens a portal on the boardwalk before him and hopes it will lead them to the bus. They need to check if it is really abandoned. He gives April an encouraging shove and then follows her straight into the glowing blue opening.

Leo feels the push and pull of the portal bending space and the next second he is falling down through a broken window into the vehicle and silently rejoices that he didn't land in another dimension.

Again. 

The landing is still something less than to be desired. He groans and feels his head with his fingers for any new injuries. Moving hurts.

“April, you good?”, he calls and relaxes when he hears her affirmation.

Looking down, Leo isn't surprised that his ankle is bent in an odd angle, because even if his body is throbbing all over, the piercing pain makes him barely choke back tears. Now, Leo is no crybaby but he has never broken on of his bones and is starting to think being a human really, really sucks, when he hears another groan close to him. At first he thinks it's April and that she lied about being fine, but the noise sounded too deep to belong to any of them,

Turning, Leo finds a boy, probably his age, stuck in one of the seats that are bent out of shape by the crash. 

Good thing they checked, before chucking the bus onto the Rhinoceros.

Before Leo can move to help him, April is already approaching carefully. She asks him if he is okay in her most gentle and soothing tone and checks the boy for any injuries.

Leo can hear the fighting outside, hears Mikey scream and Raph yelling orders and doesn't think about the fact that he basically abandoned them, so he moves to stand and supports himself on a protruding pipe.

“We need to get him outta here:”

April is crouching down on an upturned seat, trying to break the boy free and mutters: “Little help, Leo.” Together, they quickly free him from the bent metal and April leads the boy out of the bus.  
She distracts him with idle chatter, asks if he can walk to which the boy answers with a choked “I think so. What the fuck is that thing?”

And Leo feels that, because he has no fucking idea either, even though he is supposed to fight it. For the first time, he wonders how many people were stuck in debris when him and his brothers were busy worrying about saving the world. He tells himself that the feeling that is crushing his lungs and makes his breathing difficult is a broken rib and not guilt.

So he exclaims: “No thank you? Honestly, the nerve of teenagers these days.”

“Just do your thing Leo!”, answers April in annoyance and leads the boy as far away from the fight as possible. The moment they are out of sight Leo climbs on top of the bus and starts trying to open a portal below him.

He left his brothers long enough.

It doesn't work at first, because Leo has never opened one this big before and honestly, his everything hurts and he feels like crying out of frustration, begging his Odachi to work, goddammit.   
There are tears in his eyes when he feels the familiar tug of zero gravity as it finally opens and then he is falling through the portal along with the bus, only to reappear high in the sky above New York. 

The view would be stunning, if he wasn't falling towards certain death, all the while struggling to breathe through the forces tugging him back to earth.

Leo remembers being thrown off the building by Draxum and he knows it turned out fine, but now he broke more bones falling into one brick wall than he did his whole life and is starting to get why some people are really afraid of heights. 

He has to make another portal.

The acceleration makes Leo feel sick like it never has before.

He sees the bus hit the ground and already feels the heat of the explosion rising.

God, he hopes everyone is safe.

At the last second his portal opens and he shoots through it, feels himself slowing down in the pathway created, feels the weightlessness return like molasses moving and then speed up again, only to throw him out of the gateway next to his brothers. 

And because he really cannot deal with everything that could have happened and how close to dying he actually got, he says: ”Man, what a ride” and grins stupidly. Mikey throws his arms around him laughing and Leo does not mention that he is squeezing too tight and that the possibility of his ribs being broken just increased tenfold.

But they are all alive. That is a win in his book.

“Leo swoops in to save the day again”, he boasts as soon as he finds his voice again with a shit-eating grin.

Donnie facepalms and Leo thinks he hears him swear to god. Raph looks like he can't decide between relieved and angry. Probably angry.“What the hell were you thinking”. It was phrased like a statement instead of a question. Definitely angry.

“Chillax dude, it all worked out, right?”

“You almost died!”

“I had it under control, man.”

He did not. But he figures, he better not say that now.

“Also I'm in too much pain to argue right now, I think I broke something. We need to scram before police comes.”, he adds.

“This argument is not over”, Raph insists but lets Leo lean on him, as they wobble to the closest alley.

Underground, they reunite with April and Mikey dutifully reports everything she missed,

“Man, I can't believe ya'll got to see that up close and I was stuck babysitting”, she complains while fussing over their injuries. Apparently, the pain in his chest really was a broken rib. His ankle is only sprained though, so after swallowing enough pain medication to make his feet tingle, Leo assesses the state of his brothers. Rap and Donnie have small cuts across their cheeks and a few bruises. Mikey is mostly unharmed. 

The tension is still thick in the air so Leo does what he does best and blurts “Anyone wanna order in after that, too?”

Mikey volunteers to get the pizza and half an hour later, they are munching on their slices contentedly and happily watching TV with Master Splinter. Leo's mind is still back in that bus, wondering if the boy made it home safe and what had happened to the other occupants of the bus. Why did they abandon him? 

It is long past midnight, when his eyes are finally heavy enough to let him fall asleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Criticism is always welcome.  
> See you next week!


End file.
